Tabulating card



Feb. 17. 1925.

C. EHRET TABULATING CARD Filed May 2, 1922v liatented Feb. 17, 1925.

UNITED STATESv PATENT OFFICE.

CLEMENT EHRET, F WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK, ASSIGNQR T0 THE TABULATINGMACHINE COMPANY, OF'BNDICOTT, NEW YORK, A CORPORATION' OF NEW JERSEY.

TABULATTNG cam).

Application mea may 2,

To all whom z't'mag/ cmcem:

Be it known that I, CLEMENT EHRET, a citizen of the United States ofAmerica, re-

siding at White Plains, in the county of 5 Westchester and State of NewYork, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in TabulatingCards, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

In the tabulating machine art it has been the practice to lutilizeso-called tabulating cards or sheets which usually, for convenience inreading and punching, are provided with a number of printed amountnumerals y or so-called index point designations on the face thereofarranged in columnar arrangement. These cards are placed in a suitableperforating machine and perforations' placed therein to correspond withthe data which 20. it is desired to tabulate. Thereafter these `cardsmay be passed through sorting machines and afterwards through tabulatingmachines which sense the perforations in the cards andaccumulatlece'rtain items .and inl dicate or otherwise record otheritems which chine and the net result displayed at the end .of the runwill be an accumulation of all non-complementary perforations less thetotal of the amounts Whose complements are perforated in saidcomplementary7 cards. In this way subtracting operations 'can beperformed without in any way changing the dey sign or mode of operationof the tabulatin machines themselves which are adapt primarily forarithmetical accumulating oradding purposes.

' The use of these complementary cards has become quite general in thisart, but difiiculties have been encountered in that complementary cardsare difficult to read and check,

, and their use has therefore led to occasional errors. 'Io eliminatethis difficulty in checking complementary cards, various expedients1922. Serial No. 557,825.

l1ave 'been resorted to. Some of these expedients have'necessitatedthe'reversal and turning over of the complementary cards relative to theother cards in a group t o view and tabulate the same for complementaryreadings and such cards further required a modification in thetabulating machine Wlien using such reverse cards. The present inventionhas for its object the provision of .a tabulating card upon which eitheraccumulative data or datato be subtracted or both can be perforated andin 'which the data to be subtracted can be read directly' from the cardwithout the necessity of involved mental computations upon the part ofthe operator and without the necessity of reversing or turning the cardin Viewing and tabulating complementary quantities.

Referring to the drawings, a typical ernybodiment of a tabulating cardembodying myn invention is illustrated. As shown, the card comprises a4number of fields 10, 11, 12, 13, etc., containing the usual index pointprinted desi ations 14 and having the numbers increasing in value fromthe top to the bottom of the card. As thus far described, this is thecustomary and well known arrangement of a Hollerith tabulating card. Anydesired amounts can be perforated in these various fields to designatedifferent classesvof data which are `desired to be tabulated. Certaindata can be accumulated and other data may merely be read withoutaccumulating. l

In accordance with my invention there are disposed at any desiredposition on the card the so-called complementary fields 15 and 16. Anynumber of these fields may be provided. As shown, there is a field 13for accumulating quantities and a corresponding complementaryy quantityfield. There is also provided an Vamount field' 12 and a corres ondingamount complement field 16.

t will be noted that .fthe index point.

printed designations 14b on the two complementary fields are arranged inreverse order to those in the accumulative fields. These printeddesignations in the complementary fields begin with 9 at the top andsuccessively descend by units to 'zero at the bottom of the card. Thisarrangement of the complementary designations permits the user tovisually read the direct number of which a complement is printed. Forexample, suppose the operator desires to sub tract the number 96430. Thefirst step is to subtract mentally one unit from the right hand columnof the figure and punch the resulting amount, i. e., 96429 in field 15.By comparison with the similarly located printed designations in theaccumulating or adding fields 12 and 13, it will be seen that theperforations of field 15 in their location on the card designate adirect amount of 03570. This latter number is the complement of theamountlwhich was initially toA be subtracted, l

thus- 000000 number 96430 complement 03570 f since there is no necessityof going through a mental subtracting operation.

The dual card described provides for both accumulating operations landsubtracting operations. -The tabulating machine can be set to add up allof the items in the accumulative field and to subtract all of theamounts visually shown in the complementary fields from the amountstanding upon the various tabulating counters-at the beginning ofanoperation. This will give net balances.

Amounts can be added to the balance froml which subtractions are made bymerely run- .ning an accumulating card through the machine and addingthe amounts to the.

counter from which subtractions are being made.

Other uses of the dual card will be readily ap arent to those skilled inthe art. hat I'claim isv 1. A tabulatin record sheet having indexlementary in the value of the correspondy 111g perforated index pointlocations relative to the same edge of the sheet as viewed from the sameside of the sheet.

3. A tabulating record sheet comprising a plurality of numeral bearingprinted fields,

the index oint printed designations of certain of sait fields beingarranged in increasing order from the top to the .bottom and the indexpoint printed designations of other of the' fields being arranged in acomplementary manner to-the index points of the first mentioned fieldsas vviewed from thc same side of the sheet for the purpose described.

4. A tabulating card having a field adapted to be perforated and Whenperforated to be fed t0 a tabulating machine to cause the accumulationof a number corresponding to the relation of the perforations withrespect to one of the faces of the card vand means upon the same face ofthe cardfor indicating the complement of the number corresponding to theparticular 'perforations 5. A tabulating card having a field adapted tobe perforated and when perforated to v be fed to a tabulating machine tocause the accumulation of a number corresponding to the erforations, andmeans upon that face of t 1e card `Which leads, when the card ispresented to the tabulating machine for data accumulation, forind-icatim1r the complement of the number` correspon ing to the per'-forations.

In testimony whereof yI hereto affix my signature.

CLEMENT EHRET.

